1. Field
Embodiments relate to a robot hand enabling symmetrical grasping.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, utilization of robots continues to expand to a wider range of overall industries, and research and development of humanoid robots has been accelerated.
In order to allow a humanoid robot to assist human housework, rapid grasping or manipulation of various objects used by the human is important.
For this purpose, humanoid hands having high degree of freedom and size and function similar to those of humans have been developed.
Most humanoid hands include 4˜5 fingers and have high degree of freedom, i.e., 8˜15 degrees of freedom.
These humanoid hands are advantageous in that they enable the use of tools in a similar manner as humans. These humanoid hands also enable operation in environments designed for humans in a similar manner as humans. Moreover, these humanoid hands enable grasping and manipulating an arbitrary object in a similar manner as humans.
On the other hand, industrial grippers are designed to precisely and stably grasp a specific object.
Most industrial grippers include 2˜4 fingers, and the respective fingers are designed according to sizes and shapes of objects to be grasped.
Further, these industrial grippers have 1˜4 degrees of freedom lower than those of the humanoid hands.
Moreover, since all the fingers of the industrial grippers have the same shape and form complete symmetry (opposability), the industrial grippers achieve precise and stable grasping.
However, when a new object needs to be grasped, a gripper needs to be replaced with a different one, and has difficulty in using a tool designed for humans.
If humanoid hand mechanisms and grasping techniques are applied to an industrial robot, the industrial robot becomes capable of grasping and manipulating an arbitrary object located at an arbitrary position.
Therefore, such an industrial robot may grasp various objects with one kind of hand without conventional gripper replacement, and use tools designed for humans, as needed.
However, the humanoid hands have been developed so as to satisfy requirements of high degree of freedom, miniaturization and flexibility, and thus are difficult to keep up with positional accuracy, grasp stability and stiffness of the industrial grippers.
Accordingly, introduction of a hand mechanism having advantages of both the humanoid hands and the industrial grippers is required.